Welcome to the Educational Technology News site. I have been involved in technology and distance education for over 30 years. Research interests include best practices in e-learning and mobile learning. I am currently researching the effectiveness of social media for enhancing social presence and teacher immediacy in e-learning environments.

"Open educational resources hit a turning point in 2018. For the first time ever, the federal government put forward funds to support initiatives around open educational resources, and recent studies show that faculty attitudes towards using and adapting these openly-licensed learning materials are steadily improving. But fans of OER are increasingly facing a problem. While OER started off as free online textbooks, it still costs money to produce these materials, and professors often need guidance finding which ones are high quality."

"Since at least the 1980s researchers in many different fields—including psychology, computer engineering, and library and information science—have investigated such questions in more than one hundred published studies."

"Sales and Marketing, Research & Development (R&D), Supply Chain Management (SCM) including distribution, Workplace Management and Operations are where advanced analytics including Big Data are making the greatest contributions to revenue growth today."

"The story is told that, in the early days of space exploration, NASA spent millions to develop a pen that could write in zero gravity. Until they achieved this impressive feat, they used a simple pencil. That story might or might not be apocryphal, but it illustrates an important point: sometimes the best tech for the job is no tech."

EDTECH@UTRGV's insight:

I agree. The point is to select the most appropriate tool for the job. To use technology for technology's sake is wrong. In some cases a database may be the most appropriate tool for the job. In other cases a 3x5 index card may be the most appropriate tool for the job.

"“Online teaching is the joy, fun, and magic of bringing teaching and learning into the online environment,” Karen Costa tweeted last Tuesday, January 8, kicking off the #DLNchat. Many may agree with Costa, but for faculty who have spent their academic careers teaching face-to-face, the shift to online instruction can be daunting."

"A few weeks ago, Aaron, a student in my high school elective class, mentioned he didn’t use social media very often. I’ll admit I was a little skeptical at first. When I followed up, he told the class he found the ads distracting—and said he ended up buying things he didn’t need."

"Most educators have done it. They bought an edtech product from a company, only to discover that the product didn’t work the way the company promised. A defect was never resolved, or users didn’t realize they needed additional software or tools. Training didn’t happen. Attempts to reach customer service failed, and the salesperson never returned calls or emails. Crickets. Eventually, the administrators and teachers shelved the product next to all the other disappointing products that didn’t work, required extensive add-ons, or had limited professional development and less customer service."

"Coding is one of the most crowded categories in edtech. And while there are a ton of great toolsfor students of any ability level, many of these tools have hit on the same formula. So whether you’re prepping for Hour of Code or looking to launch a coding unit or curriculum in your classroom, lab, or library, it’s tough to find the right solution or even determine what separates one from another. Thankfully, there are a few developers out there breaking the mold and doing something different."

A pair of researchers caution against weakening rules around regular and substantive interaction, which they call online education's "Achilles' heel."

EDTECH@UTRGV's insight:

Not all online programs are the same. Some fully online programs are very successful with high completion rates. Also, online learning is not for everyone. Some students need a more teacher directed environment to learn.

A couple of weekends ago, I was at Freeplay which is Australia's independent games festival. This blog post is not meant as a review or summary of Freeplay. It's an attempt to distil some ideas that might be useful in the area of eLearning from a dense and exciting weekend.

"The newest generation of edtech is downright amazing; it’s no wonder that various education stakeholders might be a little excited about its potential to transform education. However, edtech works best when it is thought of as a tool to achieve a specific instructional objective and not as an end in itself. In other words, edtech should complement good pedagogy, not attempt to replace it."

"How can you promote digital citizenship in students? We’ve offered that the definition of digital citizenship can be thought of as, roughly, “The quality of habits, actions, and consumption patterns that impact the ecology of digital content and communities.” In short, citizenship online and offline is very similar. It boils down to treating people and places with the respect and care required to help them thrive."

As we begin the new year, many L&D executives and managers are starting to examine their refreshed eLearning budgets. Whether yours has been expanded, reduced, or simply maintained at past levels, how can you get the longest shelf life for your eLearning projects in 2019? These six considerations will help future-proof your organization’s eLearning in 2019 and beyond.

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.